Anne-Marie (1936) **

Enjoyable if you view it as a proto Wes Anderson flick. Otherwise it's not very compelling.

From Bats to Human Lungs, the Evolution of a Coronavirus | The New Yorker

Analyses of the sars-CoV-2 genome indicate a single spillover event, meaning the virus jumped only once from an animal to a person, which makes it likely that the virus was circulating among people before December. Unless more information about the animals at the Wuhan market is released, the transmission chain may never be clear. There are, however, numerous possibilities. A bat hunter or a wildlife trafficker might have brought the virus to the market. Pangolins happen to carry a coronavirus, which they might have picked up from bats years ago, and which is, in one crucial part of its genome, virtually identical to sars-CoV-2. But no one has yet found evidence that pangolins were at the Wuhan market, or even that venders there trafficked pangolins. “We’ve created circumstances in our world somehow that allows for these viruses, which would otherwise not be known to cause any problems, to get into human populations,” Mark Denison, the director of pediatric infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Institute for Infection, Immunology, and Inflammation, told me. “And this one happened to say, ‘I really like it here.’”

Woody Allen Memoir Apropos of Nothing Is Hilarious & Endearing | National Review

Looking ahead to the future (at 84, he says, “My life is almost half over”), Allen figures to continue vexing his many haters. He had difficulty assembling a cast for his latest movie, but it’s now in the can, and even if he couldn’t make movies, he’d write plays. If no one would produce his plays, he’d write books. If no one would publish the books now, he’d write them for later. The image comes to mind of Allen’s Bananas hero Fielding Mellish, representing himself in a treason trial, getting bound and gagged by the judge, but continuing to speak (and reduce a witness to tears). Sorry, you there with the pitchforks and the torches, despite putting him through (Bananas again) a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham, Allen still doesn’t care what you think of him, and he’s going to keep creating till he drops. “If I died right now I couldn’t complain,” he says. “And neither would a lot of other people.”

The Lady from Shanghai (1947) ****

Despite the studio "corrections" there's enough Welles-ian oddities and eccentricities to make this a perrenial favorite.

A Dandy in Aspic (1968) ***

Stylish cold-war spy thriller with a terrific Laurence Harvey as the cold, cold spy. More Le Carré than Fleming.

Earthquake Bird (2019) **

Nicely produced but meandering script. Less would have been more here.

The Jesus Rolls (2019) **

Much better than its source material just don't expect another Lebowski. There is bowling however. Amiable romp with a top cast.

Onward (2020) *

Pixar finally lays an egg and it's on the Disney-in-the-60's level. Contrived and insulting.

The Wicker Man (1973) **

Shirley Jackson would approve and the cast is good and game but it's a little too loose to be great. Still its images and integrity to the story (not to mention the lovely Ms. Ekland) keep it relevant.